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Rush and the Broken People


GedsJeans
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My heart breaker is "Middletown Dreams" at the moment.
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That one hits a bit too close to home since I actually live in a city called Middletown.

 

I didn't think there was actually a town called Middletown, I thought you had that there because you're a Rush fan lol.

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That one hits a bit too close to home since I actually live in a city called Middletown.

 

I didn't think there was actually a town called Middletown, I thought you had that there because you're a Rush fan lol.

 

:LOL: Nah, it's really where I live. :) I actually thought about buying a Middletown t-shirt to wear to the concert in Cincinnati this summer. Wish I had now.

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I'm from a town called Middletown, too! :D

 

This post really touched me and brought me (as well as all of us I assume) to the first Rush experience I ever had. The amazing musicianship and feeling these three guys shared inspired me to really start learning how to play. I was playing a little guitar, bass, piano, singing and watching Rush for the first time made me realize... why pick? I was definitely more drawn to Geddy's melodic bass lines and from that point on I wanted to be Geddy Lee. I practiced hard and fought my way through being told I would never succeed in music (deemed a failure at age 11) and not to waste my time.I'm as close as I'll ever get and loving it.

 

Amazing how the people responsible for shaping our lives tend to discourage us the most from following our dreams.

 

My words of advice I gave my three boys? "Everyone you admire or consider a hero or role model has done what everyone else told them they couldn't do. They followed their dreams, but not by dreaming, by waking up and getting to work. If you have a dream, work your ass off and live it. Never stop dreaming and never stop working to fulfill that dream."

 

Here's to hoping they don't end up just dreaming. :hail:

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I'm from a town called Middletown, too! :D

 

This post really touched me and brought me (as well as all of us I assume) to the first Rush experience I ever had. The amazing musicianship and feeling these three guys shared inspired me to really start learning how to play. I was playing a little guitar, bass, piano, singing and watching Rush for the first time made me realize... why pick? I was definitely more drawn to Geddy's melodic bass lines and from that point on I wanted to be Geddy Lee. I practiced hard and fought my way through being told I would never succeed in music (deemed a failure at age 11) and not to waste my time.I'm as close as I'll ever get and loving it.

 

Amazing how the people responsible for shaping our lives tend to discourage us the most from following our dreams.

 

My words of advice I gave my three boys? "Everyone you admire or consider a hero or role model has done what everyone else told them they couldn't do. They followed their dreams, but not by dreaming, by waking up and getting to work. If you have a dream, work your ass off and live it. Never stop dreaming and never stop working to fulfill that dream."

 

Here's to hoping they don't end up just dreaming. :hail:

 

Ugh this made me cry because everybody in my life has slammed the door in the face of my dreams and totally left me alone to try and make them reality. Always support your boys like you do!

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Yes, it is important to encourage them always. Some parents beat their children down as soon as they start to stand and keep beating them down every time they manage to get back up.

 

Don't ever discourage them, or tell them "You won't be able to do that!!"

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Yes, it is important to encourage them always. Some parents beat their children down as soon as they start to stand and keep beating them down every time they manage to get back up.

 

Don't ever discourage them, or tell them "You won't be able to do that!!"

 

Every time I told my family something I wanted to do/be their response would be "that's hard".

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Yes, it is important to encourage them always. Some parents beat their children down as soon as they start to stand and keep beating them down every time they manage to get back up.

 

Don't ever discourage them, or tell them "You won't be able to do that!!"

 

Every time I told my family something I wanted to do/be their response would be "that's hard".

Oh dear Gangster - how I can relate.

 

Did you get ridicule too?

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Yes, it is important to encourage them always. Some parents beat their children down as soon as they start to stand and keep beating them down every time they manage to get back up.

 

Don't ever discourage them, or tell them "You won't be able to do that!!"

 

Every time I told my family something I wanted to do/be their response would be "that's hard".

Oh dear Gangster - how I can relate.

 

Did you get ridicule too?

 

Oh yeah. Basically my family thought I would just want to grow up and be a housewife.

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Yes, it is important to encourage them always. Some parents beat their children down as soon as they start to stand and keep beating them down every time they manage to get back up.

 

Don't ever discourage them, or tell them "You won't be able to do that!!"

 

Every time I told my family something I wanted to do/be their response would be "that's hard".

Oh dear Gangster - how I can relate.

 

Did you get ridicule too?

 

Oh yeah. Basically my family thought I would just want to grow up and be a housewife.

At least they gave you that much.

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Yes, it is important to encourage them always. Some parents beat their children down as soon as they start to stand and keep beating them down every time they manage to get back up.

 

Don't ever discourage them, or tell them "You won't be able to do that!!"

 

Every time I told my family something I wanted to do/be their response would be "that's hard".

 

At the rink where my boys play I always hear, "It's not like these kids are ever going to the NHL.".

 

Well... why the hell not? My son is 4!?!

 

A few months ago a father of one of the kids gave me that line and followed it up with, "Do you realize that only 1 in every 3,000 kids even plays Division I hockey? Our kids have no shot."

 

My response was, "Well, you have to subtract from that 3,000 number every kid who's father told him he had no shot so he stopped trying, right?". Daggers were shot out of his eyes but I was dead serious. I will never tell my kid he is so good he will play in the NHL but I am definitely not the guy who will tell him he won't. What I will tell him is exactly how hard he has to work to get there.

 

My parents thought the only way to succeed in music was by being a rock star. While that was the ultimate dream, music surrounds us all day every day. Somebody is writing and performing it. Why not me?

Edited by KennyLee
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Yes, it is important to encourage them always. Some parents beat their children down as soon as they start to stand and keep beating them down every time they manage to get back up.

 

Don't ever discourage them, or tell them "You won't be able to do that!!"

 

Every time I told my family something I wanted to do/be their response would be "that's hard".

Oh dear Gangster - how I can relate.

 

Did you get ridicule too?

 

Oh yeah. Basically my family thought I would just want to grow up and be a housewife.

 

That's sad. You're obviously so much more.

 

:ebert:

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The past while, I have been going through a very hard time. A really hard time. Don't ask me what it is exactly that is wrong because I honestly don't know if it is any one thing. Rather, it is a combination of many different things.

 

My point in writing this is to say that some music has the effect of pushing you over the edge. Some music pulls you back from the edge. Rush is the latter. They give you the will to go on.

 

:hug2:

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I hope the new year will bring great things to all of you. I haven't been around for a little while, so I wanted to say hello...all is well here in lovely southwest Ohio.
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I hope the new year will bring great things to all of you. I haven't been around for a little while, so I wanted to say hello...all is well here in lovely southwest Ohio.

 

Sounds like you and I are practically neighbors. :)

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I hope the new year will bring great things to all of you. I haven't been around for a little while, so I wanted to say hello...all is well here in lovely southwest Ohio.

 

Sounds like you and I are practically neighbors. :)

 

Yes, we are- I work just on the other side of 75 from Middletown, off of 123 on the east end of Franklin. And I live about ten miles east of downtown Dayton.

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I hope the new year will bring great things to all of you. I haven't been around for a little while, so I wanted to say hello...all is well here in lovely southwest Ohio.

 

Sounds like you and I are practically neighbors. :)

 

Yes, we are- I work just on the other side of 75 from Middletown, off of 123 on the east end of Franklin. And I live about ten miles east of downtown Dayton.

 

That's awesome. I'm going to be moving out of the area to Pittsburgh in the next few months. Will miss it here.

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Hi girls.

 

I've never posted on a Rush message board before. I've read them for years (this one much more than the others) but, for whatever reasons, just never decided to get my feet wet. After last night's phenomenal show at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, I decided to change that - even if only for a day. There are some things inside me that need to come out and I felt like this was the only place I could release them.

 

I'm a 31 year-old woman from NYC and a Rush fan since 2003. Last night marked my 14th Rush concert and my VIP package awarded me a great ticket right in front of the very man whose plaintive riffs stole my heart 10 years ago: Alex Lifeson. (I'm pretty small, so he never noticed me standing there gazing up at him with a potent cocktail of loving tears and adoration in my eyes, which was perhaps for the best. It was a very emotional night for me and getting any sort of eye contact from a member of Rush might have legitimately caused a fainting spell!)

 

I think that most Rush fans are, to an extent, somewhat broken and emotionally fragile people. Not ALL of them, obviously, but the more I meet and speak to at shows, and the more eyes I gaze into as I pass them in the hallways of concert venues, the more I believe that the 3 talented misfits who comprise Rush have managed to produce music that reaches into the hearts of every other misfit on the planet and pulls them into that warm and comforting nimbus where they know they will always be safe. And understood.

 

I am one of those broken people. I was an "accidental" child born to a mother who was violent and resentful. I was sexually abused by my father until I was in my teens and never told anyone. I was a compulsive cutter, a complete outcast in school who was abused verbally and physically. I had no social skills, grew up despising all other children and was terrified of men. For the most formative and important years of my life, I was such an introvert that something as simple as going grocery shopping gave me anxiety attacks. I spent the majority of my life feeling like I had no place on this earth. I felt unloved, unlovable, worthless, filthy, confused and full of a sadness so infinite that it sometimes felt like my heart was smothering in my chest. I had no interest in music, in hobbies, in dating. My only true joy was in painting, but because I lived on my own from an early age, I rarely had the money to buy decent art supplies. I was a lost and completely broken human being who was merely existing without living at all.

 

Anyone who tells you that music cannot change your entire life has obviously never been at the very end of their own rope, like I was.

 

I will never, ever forget the first time I heard Rush. Sitting on my bedroom floor in front of my stereo system on an overcast day in October, I stumbled onto Q104.3FM while station surfing. Suddenly, streaming out of my speakers in impossible, shimmering, twisting ecstasy came Alex Lifeson's Limelight solo. It pierced through my heart like an arrow and I remember an awe-struck, prickling sensation spreading fast as wildfire throughout my entire body. His guitar cried out in sorrow and my heart answered immediately in understanding. But then the notes that followed twisted and danced and spiralled off into the most nakedly honest and raw joy I'd ever heard. It felt like, in the space of only 30 seconds or so, he had told my own personal story and created a happy ending for me where there had been none. The euphoria and pure, delicately screaming joy of that final, spiralling note that he rides into oblivion awakened something inside me that I couldn't fully understand but never wanted to let go of. Alex had jump-started a heart that had been dead for nearly 2 decades. I had no idea who he was, I had no idea who the rest of the band was or even the name of the song. I only knew that if I could hear that sound again, that sparkling guitar full of hope and promise, that teeming wall of rapturous sound that wrapped around it, then somehow everything would be okay. That was the beginning of my love affair with Rush. They reached me in the most beautiful and profound way possible, at a time when nothing and no one else could.

 

I have never loved a band so much. I've never felt this way about music before, so consistently and for so long. I've never felt so deeply connected to 3 people I don't even know. I've never felt that I owed SO MUCH to a group of complete strangers. As they played The Garden last night, I reflected on all of this and broke down and cried. Right there in front of me, a mere 15 feet away, were the men who had saved my life and they didn't even know it. They would NEVER know it. I doubt they realize just how much the fruits of their livelihood affect the lives of those who hear it, how significant they are to the lost and hurting who stumble across their music. I'm still a broken person, but Rush was the bandage that helped me begin to heal. They were my rainbow in a life of nothing but clouds. I can only hope to God that they know how special they are. I often wish that I could meet them and just hug them and tell them "thank you", but it would never be enough. For what they have given to me, for what they have given to us all, there is no hug long or tight enough and there can never be enough "thank you"s.

 

As The Garden wound softly to a close last night and the boys retreated for a short break, I thought about the lyrics. "In the fullness of time, a garden to nurture and protect". Whether Rush realizes it or not, we all are their garden to nurture and protect.... and they have done a damn fine job.

 

So to all the other misfits out there... to all of you who, like me, have found solace or love or hope or healing in the music of these 3 wonderful men... my heart is with you, I understand and I raise a glass today to you, to Rush, to new beginnings, to the strength to carry on despite all odds and to the camaraderie that exists within this incredibly unique fanbase.

 

If anyone made it through this entire message, thank you from the bottom of my heart for obliging me. :') And most of all, thank you RUSH!!!

 

<3

 

Quite possible the best post that I have ever read on this board.

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Neil Peart's playing was the primary reason that my brother became a drummer himself. The first (and only) kit I remember him having was a Slingerland, just like what Neil played back then. I have a vivid memory of watching him play along to the studio version of YYZ; it must have sometime around 1983 or '84, and he nailed every beat and every one of Neil's fills just right. I remember that moment being the very one that made me want to pick up the drumsticks as well, and within another year or so, I started playing as well.

 

I went back and quoted one of my own earlier posts in this thread because I wanted to tell you all about something that just happened a couple of weeks ago. The weekend right after Christmas, I took my family up to my brother Matt's house- they live a couple of hours away by car, and they had just come down to us at Christmas, but we had never been to his house, so we went up. (Matt was the middle brother, until Greg died. But anyway)...

 

At one point in our visit, the kids were all in the basement messing around, and I heard some random beating of drums. And Matt said something to me like, "Do you want to go down there and show them how it's done?"...so we went down, and what do I see right in front of me down there but Greg's old Slingerland kit- looking perfectly maintained. I was totally blown away; it was the first time I had seen it in 27 years; I didn't even know it was still around. And so anyway...Matt played it a little bit, and then I sat down and played it some, too. It was an incredible little moment. :)

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